The present invention can be applied to various types of moving body, and in particular to a ship. However, it is preferably applied to an aircraft flying over a terrain, in particular for the purpose of carrying out searches.
Even though not exclusively, the present invention applies more particularly to Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, that is to say to searches for and locations of persons (who can be in difficulty), installations and/or equipment on the ground. It is known that such searches can be carried out by several aircraft flying as a patrol, which use visual guidance and/or keep radio contact between themselves in order to try to optimize the search zone. An optimization consists in obtaining a maximum and complete search cover such that a single aircraft carries out the search at one point of the cover zone and that any point in the zone in question can be seen from one of said aircraft.
However, the searches carried out in the normal way are not optimized to the best of the capabilities of a patrol of aircraft, since it is frequent that two aircraft fly over (at least partially) the same zone.